6th WEEK

Nice to see you again!

This week has been very useful, I have learnt a lot of things, I have clarified some issues and I have organised much better all the information I had until now. Here you can see a summary of it!

BUS METAPHOR

The class has just started when the teacher said we had an exam. First I was scared, I have been working really hard through all the materials provided, but I didn’t know if I could show everything I learnt in the exam. Once I read it, I was more relaxed, most of the questions were familiar to me. Then, the teacher said we had to stop and I thought it was the end of the time, fortunately, it was just a moment because we were going to continue it in couples. At this point, I was far more calmed as I knew I had the support of a colleague who had also prepared the materials and, to my surprise, almost all the answers were very similar!

Finally, we made groups of four where two of my peers had the answers to my exam and vice versa. At this moment I realised three things:

1) I had underestimated me because my answers were on the right track. I think I could have done it well if it was a real exam. 

2) Children also suffer this anxiety during an exam. Moreover, the final result made from the combination of the pair or group work is even more rewarding than the individual one.

3) Everything, from the individual exam through partners and finally in groups, is part of the learning process.

Here you can see my feelings before the exam and after it: 

BEFORE   &   AFTER

Afterwards, each group explained the ideas of each TEPBLL; ours was called “The Holiday Buzz”. It was a really discouraging session because we were very engaged in our project and it wasn’t telecollaborative enough. Moreover, we didn’t know how to make students collaborate by creating interdependence between them. We thought a lot of different ideas but anyone actually fitted in. However, I have to say that the group to whom we were presenting our TEPBLL was very helpful as they provided some suggestions to improve it. Finally, during the meeting I came out with an idea, why not searching information from different countries rather than exchanging only their own experiences? From here, everything went better. 

At the end of the class, each student had to explore one tool, in my case Wordle. I must say that I have never thought before that I could take such profit for a TEPBLL from a tool that, at first, seems quite simple! 

In the meeting...

4th meeting

Throughout this week, I also finished my critical review. Initially it was a challenge that I did not know if I would be able to overcome, I have never used camptasia and I have never done a tutorial before, not even in my mother tongue! I prepared carefully what I was going to say and, with clear ideas, I carried out my proposal. Actually, it took me less than expected and I'm pretty satisfied with my result considering that I haven’t had any prior experience in this field.

I hope you enjoy it!

7th WEEK

Hello bloggers!

In class we made groups where each member had to investigate one learning style. This class was very interesting not only to know all the learning styles that must be taken into account when planning a project and how to introduce them, but also because it came to discussion interesting issues such as whether we tend to use more activities related to the learning style we are or not, among others.

Here you have a summary of the four Learning Styles and some tips to take all of them into account when planning a TEBLL!

LEARNING STYLES

After that, it came out a discussion about all the hard work we were having during the subject.  As I mentioned earlier weeks, I think it’s very interesting everything we are doing because we're working firsthand resources that may be useful in our future as teachers. We always say how the activities should be but we have never applied it during all the degree and probably it scares us. However, I believe there is too much work to be done each week and, for this reason, I can’t delve into the material as much as I'd like to.

At the end of the class, each group of students explored one tool, in my case TIKaTOK. Here you have the reflections done in class about it!

TIKATOK

In the meeting...

5th meeting

See you in 8th week!

8th WEEK

Almost every week, we have commented in class different questions related to the bus metaphor. I have not explained all of them explicitly in the blog as I presented all the reflections in the slideshare of the 6th week. Nevertheless, I found really important the fact of having a Plan B when planning, so I will add some more comments about this issue.

Having a Plan B is a really important thing to bear in mind because, when we are in class, most of the times we will have to deal with some unexpected problems that could appear. One of the interesting purposes we have discussed was to keep a diary, so the teacher can take notes from everything he/she sees in the class so that, later on, he/she can do the appropriate modifications of the planning to adequate it to children’s needs.

Little could I expect that I will see the need of a plan B in the same session! At the end of the class, we went to the computers room to work on Second Life. I was very excited as I have never worked before with such tool. It was surprising the fact of having all the students at the same time and at the same place while the teacher is explaining, in this case Dr. Sadler was teaching us how to use it.

However, I think we should be very careful with this tool because everyone can access to these platforms unless you have a private island. Strangers can talk to students which is, actually, what has happened to us. Also, we have to keep in mind that the internet connection can fail and you NEED TO HAVE A PLAN B ready. This is what happened to me, I felt frustrated because every time I tried to access to the platform, the computer was not working and I couldn’t enjoy the activity.

Apart from that, we have also commented some slides from a PPT about "Question 2" from The Bus Metaphor. As I said before, I have summarised the content in week 6, but I would like to emphasize some issues. One of the most important things when planning is to state a learning objective apart from the output. Sometimes, we focus too much on the final output we want to obtain and we guide the activities to achieve it. This, can make us forget our learning goal which is as important as the product we want to obtain. The final part of the class, discussing with other groups, was very enriching as it came out some opinions that were really interesting to discuss, such as if we have to change or adapt the objectives, which objectives we have to share with kids, … Although we had some different opinions, it made me think about different issues to take into account when planning a TEPBLL.

In the meeting...
6th meeting

9th WEEK

Hello again!

For this week I had to read two texts:

Dodge, J. (2009). 25 quick formative assessments for a differentiated classroom. New York / Buenos Aires: Scholastic. Retrieved 28 May 2014 from
http://store.scholastic.com/content/stores/media/products/samples/21/9780545087421.pdf

Policy 2520.7  21st Century Foreign Language ContentStandards and Objectives for West Virginia School.

Here you have my reflections about the week!

9th week

Before ending, I would like to summarise some ideas about the first article as I think assessment is an important part of the learning process that, sometimes, we tend to forget.

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT

See you soon!

10th WEEK

Hello everybody!

For this week, we had to make a self-reflection about all we have been working on. As you have been seeing, I have learnt a lot of things! Apart from the last ones explained (formative assessment, plan B...), I have some other issues to comment, let's have a look!

Self-reflection

In class, we have been discussing the feedback from our colleagues about our TEPBLL. Although some of the comments we had improved before, I think the discussion has been very helpful. I realized it helped me to clarify the main issues to consider when planning a successful TEPBLL. Moreover, I have been able to criticise the drafts much better than at the beginning of the subject. Sometimes, it's easier to see "the mistakes" but it's more difficult to think about how to improve them.

In the meeting...

8th meeting 

At home, we had to read this article:

Dervin, F., Paatela-Nieminen, M., Kuoppala, K., Riitaoja, A-L. (2012). Multicultural education in Finland: Renewed intercultural competencies to the rescue? International Journal of Multicultural Education, 14(3), 1-13

Although I think that the finish lecturer is going to be very interesting, I found the text a little bit difficult to understand. Therefore, I formulate some questions that worried me about how to deal with multiculturalism in class. I must say that I’m very excited because I‘m curious to know what she will explain, not only about multiculturalism, but also about the finish education system as we have very good results from it. 

Let's see how it went in the following week!

11th WEEK

Hello again!

In this week we had our guest lecturer and it has been really interesting! Here you have some of the ideas we have talked about!

MULTICULTURALISM

This week, we haven’t had any meeting but, as we all agreed, we have been doing the theoretical framework and improving the advertisement in order not to leave everything for the last meeting. Moreover, as Melinda sent us feedback from our TEPBLL, I gathered all the information and I made the necessary improvements. I have to say that I’m very glad with the feedback as we have finally made a truly collaborative project! I'm also very happy because we have been carrying out the tasks up to date thanks to tools, such as google docs, that have allowed us to work at the same time in the same document.

We are arriving to the end... you'll see the result of our work next week!

12th WEEK

Hello bloggers!

In class, we made a very interesting dynamic called "Fishbowl" where a group was placed in a circle and another group was placed in a circle surrounding the first group. The group who was inside had to discuss some questions that we had proposed in previous classes, while the group located outside had to observe and take notes. 

Here you can read some comments of my group and my feelings during the activity:

FISHBOWL

The last meeting was pretty fast because, as I said earlier, during the week we were working asynchronously to improve the project so, in the meeting, we have just refined some details.

Here you can see how it looks like!

THE HOLIDAY BUZZ: project & advertisement

Then, we did the exam. The situation was a little bit strange because UIUC students didn’t have any exam, so we were supposed to do a task together when part of the group didn’t have to. However, our UIUC mate participated in the discussion, but perhaps not as actively as if it was also his task, we should always do parallel activities.

At the end, the exam was fine since we had similar ideas about the questions proposed. The moment of farewell reminded me the first meeting, everything has gone quite fast so we had the work done but nobody took the initiative to say goodbye. Finally two of us started saying “it has been a pleasure…” and we said goodbye.  

See you in week 13!